Photo Blog

Wednesday, went to town...bought an extension cord for the pond. Forgot I had practice. Drums this Sunday for me, looks like. Boring day.

Today, spent much of the day room cleaning. And took a bunch of pictures on a bike ride this morning.

The awesomest tree fort in the world waiting to happen.

Another angle of the pond.

These people have no grass on their entire property. I'm serious. It's all cement and deck, from neighbor to neighbor, road to lake.

I just love taking pictures of this sign.

Those things that keep filling up the fields. The nearest house is the one I bought my .22 at.

The less-populated side of the lake.

The more-populated side of the lake.

The boat launch. According to the sign, if you have a perfectly round head and you're wearing a black wetsuit, don't dive when the sky is yellow or your head will explode.

A squirrel.

FTTDOTD: Learn to tie a noose. A noose with thirteen loops is illegal in Canada. Classed as a lethal weapon. Pretty sweet, huh. When I found that out, I promptly looked them up and learned to make them.

My Pen Is A Ball Of Nuclear Fire Ninety-Three Million Miles Away

I stayed home from church on Sunday morning and poured the cement for the lower pond in my garden. It's coming together nicely. Also planted all the flowers and trees.

When it's filled with water, it looks SWEET. We filled it Monday night, but the pump clogged. After cleaning it we decided to wait and make a filter before starting the thing up again.

Spent the rest of Sunday around the house...fine-tuning the new drum set a bit, etc.

Er...also spent a bit of Sunday cleaning my room.

Monday went up north to a big flea market in a park. Mostly antique dealers, but still plenty of good stuff. I made duct tape wallets for the sisters on the way up...girls' pants just need bigger pockets, that's all there is to it. When everyone else got their re-entry stamp on their wrist, I got mine on my forehead. Kept my hat pulled low, but it was fun.

Picked up a working laptop for thirty bucks. Needs some upgrades before I can use it the way I want to: Instant message from anywhere in or out of the house, and stream music to the drumset, a few small broken parts, but all fixable. Great price.

Got to watch a guy making bear sculptures with a chain saw. That was really cool.

Watched another guy using welding glasses and a magnifying glass to burn pictures onto wood. The dealer in the next aisle was making a fortune off of magnifying glasses, and couldn't figure out why. I bought a rather large one myself. Used it to burn the date into a piece of bark and stuck it in my garden.

Then picked up a doo-cap-cloth thinger just for kicks.

Water was two dollars a bottle. I'm guessing it was holy water pumped from the ground by George Washington. It tasted like crap anyway. :-)

Bought a box of dryer cloths and scattered them around my room, especially in the closet and the dresser. Everyone else says they can't smell it, but I am positive our laundry soap makes my clothes stink. Honestly, I like the smell of them dirty better than when they're clean, and that's just disgusting.

Then when we got home around one in the afternoon, everyone went to sleep...except me. I went and worked at Tim's, pulling weeds and hauling woodchips and fixing quads and replacing weed-killer sprayer hoses. Earned back almost as much money as I'd spent that morning.

Today...Didn't do loads. Calling up all my connections to see what needs to be done to get the laptop going nicely. Went for a nice run. Went much longer without stopping than last time, unfortunately, I have no clue how far I ran. Plan: Use the odometer on the moped to figure out how many laps through the woods it'll take to equal two miles.

SOTD: Audio Adrenaline - Starting Over (I like maybe one out of five Audio Adrenaline songs, but this one is pretty cool.)

EDIT: FTTDOTD: Go to SeaWorld. Bring a fishing pole. (idea courtesy of Travis)

Bigger Is Louder

Doodle, you're the only one who will read this, and you've already heard it and commented it, so save yourself five minutes and skip it.

Cleaned up around the basement through the morning...after that we were going to town to buy the plants for my garden. On the way we were going to pick up a new radiator, because we'd spent much of yesterday working on the heating core, which is connected directly to the radiator...as we were working, we noticed that the inside was gummed up quite badly. Apparently that's not some thing that can be cleaned, so, off we go.

On the way? The radiator decides it's had enough and starts spraying antifreeze out over the hood. Luckily the auto-parts store is a mile away. What I find interesting is the antifreeze jugs are labled: 'Antifreeze and Engine Coolant' It keeps the oil and gas and such from freezing...and it cools the engine...Be afraid. Be very afraid.

So we sit at Auto-Zone, Dad comes and gets us, he was waiting at the flower joint, he'd gone straight there from work. Looks at it, radiator is alright, cap just wasn't on tight enough. (Ever tried to take on or put off a radiator cap? It's pretty weird. You can't just turn it left, you need to push down at certain times as you go, 'cause it's got a sort of a childproofing thing to keep it from vibrating off.) We buy the new radiator anyway, still need it.

Go to flower store. The trees I'd decided on turned out to be the cheapest of the miniature trees at ten dollars a tree...gah. Some of these things were one hundred dollars or more, for just a tiny tree.

My spelling of the flowers was about as wrong as it could be. They're 'phlox'.

Went to the grandparents' house. 'Surprise, Happy Birthday Ken!'. Everyone decided to celebrate it early since we'll be busy on the ninth. Expensive stuff this year.
A drumset. Heads in terrible shape, finish scratched up, but still a nice set. The guy who used to own the place where my dad works had bought it for his son, who didn't know what he was doing and didn't take care of the set at all. One of the cymbals is cracked beyond playing.
Drum heads would have been very welcome, but after setting this set up amongst my old one...it sounds so cool...I am happy. Had to move the drums back into my bedroom, just not enough space for 'em otherwise. Got piles of drum sticks as well. More than I'll ever use.

Then there's a very nice push mower. Gently used Honda. While I can't personally vouch for their cars, Honda's small engines are the absolute best I've ever seen. Our quad, gocart, and moped are all Hondas. Anyway, we've got spots that require a push mower, and some day I'll probably have a yard to mow. (dang it :) )

Assorted tools, and a very nice wallet. My duct-tape one, while being much roomier and having a change pouch, is now obsolete. A set of computer speakers. Handy because they have plugs for my headset mic on 'em.

FTTDOTD: Make a flamethrower with an aerosol can and a lighter.

Sometimes Words Get In The Way...

Managed to stay busy all day long whilst accomplishing nothing. Getting a bunch of old computers ready to sell. Decided to take them outside, but the sun made it rather hard to see the screen...and after a coupla hours, my tools got so hot I literally couldn't touch them. Brought everything back inside. The problem I'm having is with all the old parts, I have no idea what still works. Ah well. Work on it some more tomorrow I guess.

Then shoveled more dirt at Travis', watered his garden, mowed his pig pen. It's an even trade, he works with us sometimes as well.

So, busy all day, and nothing done. *sigh*

SOTD: Aly & AJ - Something More (Not because there's anything special about the song...it's just stuck in my head.)

Not A Rant

Got busy, no time for a rant, sorry.

Had a fire yesterday, burned the vacuum. Remember, the one Travis dragged through the streets...the only thing left of it was the motor. Actually had trouble putting it out...bonus from living on a gravel road: free fire extinguishing material.

The pool liner leaks. Gonna have to make the lower pond out of cement. This project is getting expensive. As in, going to be spending around one hundred dollars this weekend to buy the rest of the stuff. Kinda uncool.

The screw that stabbed my bike tire went all the way through...so now I'm waiting for another patch job to dry. Maybe tomorrow I can go for a bike ride then.

Got the gocart out today. It's slower than it used to be... :)

Spent a coupla hours shoveling dirt at Travis'...their back yard is all sand, so we were spreading topsoil.

Then went to Tim's and helped unpack a bunch of stuff they'd brought back from their cottage. Debbie pays twice as much as Tim does. :D

Got a bet going with Travis, once his pool is open, we're gonna stay outside all day, mostly in the vicinity of the pool, and if I'm not sunburned badly enough to peel at the end of the day, he has to buy me ice cream. If I lose, obviously, I buy him ice cream.

Free ice cream for me, I think.

Don't have a song of the day.

Quicky

First off, posted a list over that way -> of people from Battlecry who read my blog from time to time...if I missed you, let me know in a comment so I can add you to the list.

Second, my tire blew on a bike ride Monday night. A screw stuck straight through the center of it...I suspect sabatauge. 'S okay. I've gotten downright speedy with a patch kit.

Third, and definitely most important, after asking if the ice cream store had 'heath bar flurries' EVERY TIME before ordering something, they finally added it to their menu. Rock on.

EDIT: Fourth thing, sharpened the lawn mower blade today. Thing was so dull you couldn't kill yourself with it. And fifth thing, put a pump in my stream thinger to see how it'd work. Not badly. Finished the lower pond today, with old pool liner. It looked like what it was made out of: garbage. Lined it with rocks and it looks better now. More pics on Sunday after we've gotten trees and flowers put in. And a bigger pump. A MUCH bigger pump. :D

Look out, the next blog is going to be a political rant. Mostly about gun laws.

SOTD: Big And Rich - Lost In The Moment (up until now, their songs have sucked [though the music was quite good] but this one is finally a decent listen)

...And The Whole Town Said 'The Boy Should've Used Red'...

Friday: I squandered downloading TV shows from when I was younger...The nineties just had better TV shows, let's face it. Does anybody REALLY still find 'Survivor' interesting?

Friday evening almost had a nice fight with a coupla retards (they go to Wayland schools, they can't help it) who were vandalizing Travis' grandpa's house. I got there about thirty seconds too late and missed all the fun...they were already running away down the street. Apparently after Travis shot at them the first time, they weren't nearly as brave. Whatever courage they had left abandoned them when Travis then chased them down the road waving his knife around.

Saturday, covered everything on the bottom of my truck with oil...When a car isn't being driven, it rusts MUCH faster. Rust is crumbly, and crumbly brake lines are bad brake lines...they're also brake lines that blow holes when you try to stop...and then you don't stop. Was a slow, cramped job. Got oil everywhere. It wouldn't be bad at all if there was room to move around, but some genius decided that the higher-maintenance bits of a car should go underneath. Anyway, now it's got oil on it. So do I.

In the mean time, The sisters painted the railroad tie retaining walls we have scattered throughout the yard with oil as well. Keeps 'em from rotting and makes 'em look all shiny black.

Then: drum roll, got all the stuff together to pour the cement for my garden. Before picture:

As you can see, the sod has been removed, the wall relocated, dirt brought in to form a hill, and trenches/basins dug for the actual stream thingy. I've also put down chicken wire to form the cement around, to keep it strong.

Hunting all over the place for the parts, finally got all the pumps, hoses, pipes, cement, wire, wheelbarrows, shovels, hoes, buckets of gravel, tarps, and spectators. Yeah, managed to pick up two or three of them.

Photoshop can make your arms really thick or really thin. Wonder if it could clean my shirt?

I don't like this angle so much, but it shows the stream. I'll have dirt and very small flowers around the edges so the cement won't look nearly so nasty when it's done. The small bits of gravel and rocks look pretty cool stuck in the cement, methinks, and they'll make a nice sound when we run water over them. The pipe sticking through the cement at the top is for the hose to come in through. This way if the hose leaks, it will be easy to remove and replace. The pump will sit in the bottom of the bucket there, and the pond around the bucket will be made from a large scrap of pool liner...my dad knows a guy who is replacing his, and the old one is mostly okay...so, that'll be my bottom pond...my dad has plans for the rest of the liner...if I get a pond, he wants to make one too. Only bigger. :)

Saturday morning, biked down to the gas station and bought a bunch of pocketknives...

Sunday, church, boring, mowed the lawn because my dad had a migraine and couldn't finish it. (if you've ever had a migraine, you know what it's like to want to close all the windowshades, duct tape everyone's mouths, and shut your head in the freezer)
Directly after that, off to church for the open air concert, in which I was playing the trusty bongos and shakers. Spent like an hour toting speakers and cables and junk outside to the two big trailers we had set up as a stage. It was a lot of fun though, because we all got to goof off on stage, talk to each other and the audience between songs, make fun of each other, cheer, etc. If we messed up, no one cared. We also played a selection of the coolest songs we've done at church over the past coupla years. A few people even got up and danced. Then there were hot dogs, put everything away, go home.

And that was the weekend of Ken.

SOTD: Joe Diffie - John Deere Green (Cool song. It grows on you.)

FTTDOTD: You can download a twenty-minute track that someone made of the part of the Christmas song that goes: 'Here Comes Santa Clause' being repeated over and over. Burn this to CDs and bring it to people's houses. When no one is in the room, put the CD in their player on 'repeat track' and turn the volume low so they won't notice it for a while.
Variations: Stick it in someone's car CD player; Bring it to the mall in a boombox and carry it around for a while until you are threatened with death or worse at least three times.

EDIT: well this site has it's downsides as well. I can't start new paragraphs wherever I want to.

EDIT: Fixed it.

Just A Filler

I'll post a real blog tomorrow, I promise. To those who are taking the trouble to come over here and read this, I thank you very much. Blogging is no fun without a coupla readers. I'll still keep up with your battlecry blogs.
Good night!